WHITE, OR COMMON I3IRCH. 235 



spade ; and to defend them from winds and frosts if sown 

 early, a little straw, pease-haulme, or other slight covering, 

 may be thrown over them. In the following spring the 

 seedlings may be drawn from the bed, and run into nursery 

 rows, from whence they will be fit to transplant to their 

 permanent stations in two years, or even in one, if small 

 plants are preferred. 



The Birch once planted requires very little attention or 

 pruning, and indeed the knife should never be used except 

 to remove a second or supernumerary leader. In districts 

 where the Birch abounds, many seedlings annually spring- 

 up, and from this source nurseries when first established 

 were almost entirely stocked, and some nurserymen are 

 still supplied to a considerable extent in this way. It is 

 asserted that these native seedlings root much better than 

 plants taken out of a regular seed bed ; but purchasers, 

 we think, run a much greater risk of getting an inferior 

 tree, than where care has been taken to select and gather 

 seed from the finest specimens of the pendulous kind. The 

 disease most common to the Birch shows itself in tufts or 

 excrescences composed of small anastomosing twigs, upon 

 the upper branches ; these, when seen at a distance, resemble 

 the nests of crows or other large birds. This disease seems 

 to proceed from an extravasation of the sap, of the precise 

 cause of which we are ignorant, though we think it more 

 likely to originate from some contamination proceeding from 

 the nature of the soil, than from the puncture of an insect. 

 It is most prevalent upon ill-conditioned trees of the 

 common sort, and though we have seen it affect them in 

 a variety of soils, it is most common upon such as grow 

 in that of a boggy or moorish nature. 



Various insects and their larvae feed upon the Birch ; . 

 among the Lepidoptera we have found the caterpillars of 



